Mike's Tomato Sauce
by gzdacz
Summary: "There was just him, him and the tomato sauce can, and the rest of the weekend to get through before he could get back to work, to people who would maybe make him feel less alone". And, though Mike cannot possibly know it yet, that is one hell of a 'maybe'. Set after the events of "Blind Sided", a different approach to what might have followed.
1. Chapter 1

**Hi everyone!**

**Firstly, I would like to thank those of you who have read my previous story (or those who will - it's not as dark as this one, I can assure you!). I do hope you enjoyed it (will enjoy?).**

**Secondly, it's been ages since I uploaded, but I had trouble finding a spare moment. This story won't be _very_ long (9 chapters if nothing changes) and I'll try to upload it two chapters at a time, since they'll all be pretty short. The general idea came to my head just after I first watched "Blind Sided" a _long _time ago, but I never got round to writing it down till now.**

**Oh, and I do not own Suits. Yet!**

**Chapter 1 **_**in which Mike doesn't get his shit together**_

_**(Saturday)**_

_Get your shit together._

He couldn't get rid of this voice throughout the evening.

He heard it when he was kicking Tess out of his apartment. Yes, 'kicking out' was exactly what he did. He watched her quickly gather her belongings, shooting him shocked and angry glares, his face calm and emotionless, but inside he just wanted to hug her, run his fingers through her golden hair and tell her it was okay. She was pathetic. Disgusting. He could picture her slipping into her husband's bed, whispering into his ear and caressing him with the same hand she had touched Mike, insincere in her words and actions. It made him feel sick.

But he made himself feel sick too. He was pathetic, and no matter how often he thought that he didn't owe Tess's husband a thing, that he wasn't the one who should be faithful, that he wasn't breaking any promises, any trust, he still felt disgusted by his own actions and by how he kept lying to himself.

Tess locked the door behind her with an expression of a betrayed doe and Mike was alone again.

But when he woke up Saturday morning and realised that she was gone, that he would never wake up in the middle of the night at the sound of her light steps as she tiptoed only in her underwear to make some tea she thought was best for insomnia — he felt relieved.

He took a long shower, he made himself breakfast and he started tidying up. He got rid of old pizza boxes and beer cans; he washed the windows; he ripped the sheets from his pillows and he replaced them with new ones, which had never had a married woman's head lying on them; he vacuumed the whole apartment and it suddenly became so spacious and full of light, and optimistic.

It was the remaining pot he found troublesome. He knew he should get rid of it too, but he couldn't bring himself to it, so he just put it back on the bookshelf and decided he would deal with it later.

And then he went shopping. He strolled around, putting different items in his trolley, trying hard to pick the healthy ones, because he decided he would take better care of himself than he had before, all part of getting his shit back together, new beginnings and so on. Pepper, bread, flour, chocolate — okay, he wasn't doing very well with the healthy bit —, tea, rice, noodles, tomato sauce—

Tomato sauce. He suddenly remembered how he would come back home after the day, hungry as hell, how he would climb the stairs as quickly as he could, wash his hands with green soap she had always bought in the shop downstairs, sit behind the table and eat spaghetti, getting tomato sauce on his lips and chin, and nose, and she would watch him, amusement and affection in her eyes.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He wasn't going to break apart in a shopping mall, in a crowd of people, with a can of tomato sauce in his hand! It was just _a can_. It had nothing to do with anyone. It was an _item_. But that's what items do. They embody feelings and memories of others, because they do not have them themselves. And that's why the tomato sauce was soon put down gently in the trolley, and why Mike tried not to notice the green soap when he walked past it, and why he chuckled at the sight of hair gel.

The tomato sauce made him realise another thing: he was not okay. Not yet. He could lie to himself all he wanted, but he _was_ lonely, he _was_ in despair and he missed her _so much_—

His apartment was empty when he got back. Just as empty as he felt inside. There was just him, him and the tomato sauce can, and the rest of the weekend to get through before he could get back to work, to people who would maybe make him feel less alone.

He needed a distraction. And company.

_Get your shit together._

Mike walked over to the bookshelf.

_Get your shit together._

_I'm sorry_, thought Mike, fiddling with the little bag. _But shut up now._

After he had finished the first cigarette, the voice disappeared and stayed shut. He would only hear it again in the evenings, when he would lay in bed, somewhere between being awake and being asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2 **_**in which Harvey is being a bit of an ass**_

_**(Monday)**_

It was a cold Monday morning and Harvey was at his desk, quite an unusual thing for him to be doing at eight o'clock sharp, as at this time he would usually still be wondering somewhere around the city, making sure he had completed his daily set of exercise, or waiting for a certain associate of his to kindly show up so that he'd get a chance to dump some work on him. But he didn't actually feel like doing any of those, possibly due to his failed attempt at being romantic that weekend. No, that couldn't be it. He was already over all that crap.

Ruffling through some random files, anything that happened to be lying in reach really, he tried to focus on work, when the door of his office flung open and a certain someone, who had developed a peculiar habit of not knocking, walked in. Harvey watched his associate walk over to the desk, fall into the chair opposite and then sigh loudly. He then lay his forehead on a stack of paperwork and waited.

'Good morning' greeted him Harvey.

''Morning' came the muted response and then silence fell once again. Harvey was quite clearly expected to be the first one to interrogate the kid on what was it that made him sigh and press his forehead against legal paperwork, but he refused to give in. He could be very patient and knew his associate could not.

So he continued the 'I'm reading' act, his eyes glazing over whole paragraphs, until Mike broke down.

'Rachel hates me' he confessed at last. 'I mean, I saw her in the elevator this morning and she completely blanked me! I get it that she's a bit upset, but it's not like we're actually dating and I'm still not allowed to get close to other women? That's—'

'Fascinating' Harvey kindly finished for him. 'But I think I've already told you I was not interested in your soap opera love life? Or maybe you didn't hear me back then?'

Mike was just opening his mouth to answer, but Harvey didn't give him a chance to.

'Let me rephrase that for you then: if you have something on the case, let's hear it. If not, I'd suggest you get out and actually have some work done. So, which will it be?'

His neck stiff and face tense, he watched as surprise and hurt appeared on his associate's face before he shook his head and left the office without another word. It wasn't the first time he had cut Mike's whining, but today it seemed different, maybe because of that peculiar harshness and irritation in his tone of voice, or maybe because he wasn't yet over last week's events, when Mike had screwed up big time and hadn't left Harvey any choice but do something he abhorred. Or maybe he simply couldn't stand talking about the kid's love life while his own had been in ruin since Friday?

'Gosh, what made you so mad at him?' he heard Donna's disapproving voice over the intercom.

He wasn't mad at Mike. He was mad at Zoe and Mike proved himself to be, not for the first time, the closest, innocent, _perfect_ victim. Because damn it, he couldn't let Zoe know he was angry, not when all she had wanted was one, calm night before the storm, not when her brother was _dying_. Harvey tried to imagine how he would have felt if it had been his own brother dying and he winced at the very thought.

Whatever her reasons were, though, she had left New York and Harvey, while in the same time not leaving him any hope. No 'to be continued' was to be expected here, no demanding if he'd care to wait until the storm had passed and the sea stilled. Would he wait? He probably would. Had she asked.

He wished for nothing more than a 'maybe', a possibility of meeting up someday over dinner in a nice, expensive restaurant, talking things over, and then a couple of nights spent together if Olivia allowed it. But, it occurred to him, that could have been not what Zoe wished for. She had a responsibility in the form of a little child now. Maybe what she needed was someone with whom she wouldn't flirt over boeuf bourginion, but try to pick the best school to send Olivia to. And maybe she thought Harvey could never be that someone.

That hurt. But, on second thought, there was a possibility he really couldn't, at least judging by the way he had just treated Mike. Though that was completely different.

Was it?

**Thanks for reading, reviews are appreciated :)**


	3. Chapter 3

**hikeyosemite: thanks for the review, I hope you like the rest of the story too :)**

**kasinka613: używaj języka ojczystego, używaj, w końcu Polacy nie gęsi... Dziękuję za komentarz, oby dalsza część cię nie rozczarowała :)**

**All of you: thank you for your reviews, favourites and follows! Now I really feel under pressure to deliver the next chapters before you all manage to forget about the story... So here it is. **

**Chapter 3 **_**in which Mike is lonelier than ever**_

_**(Wednesday)**_

Mike was sitting in his cubicle, staring at the empty air, fiddling with a yellow marker in one hand while the other lay still on a large stack of files, which, by the way, had to be completed before Thursday evening. There was also another stack, similar to the first one, lying a bit further and thus out of his reach for now — those he didn't have to worry about before Friday. Truth to be told, he had quite a lot to worry about already.

Life was so _amazing_ at the moment he seriously wondered how it felt to be drowning and if it was any better. He held his breath for a moment to try it, but when his lungs started to burn, as if emptiness could hurt, he gasped for oxygen and decided hanging was probably a better choice. He could hang himself in Louis's office and then, as a ghost, haunt him or, better even, scare the heck out of his clients till the point all of them had joined Harvey's forces. Then he'd probably get an enormous bonus and would buy himself something awesome, like an airplane. He had always wanted to have an airplane, one with wings and a catapult.

But no, he wouldn't be able to fly an airplane as a ghost, would he? Because ghosts can only go to places they've seen during their lives... no, that was Harry Potter. Anyway, best not to risk losing his chance to fly an airplane.

Thank God he didn't have a rope then.

He knew he should be getting down to work, and yet he was still staring thoughtlessly, or so it would seem, because in fact he was trying to recreate the events which had led him to this sorry state.

So first Grammy died. And then came Tess... and Rachel... and pot— and God, so many different things came, but that was more of a background story. Moving on.

Monday, Harvey was in a terrific mood: he first kicked Mike out of his office, then wouldn't even bother to pay him a visit in his cubicle but sent Donna with instructions about their new case. After Mike had spent almost two hours trying to make out what he was expected to do from his boss's brief guidelines, not even sure whether Harvey _wanted_ to go to court with that one or not, and the amount of sleep he had had that night was not entirely unrelated to the difficulties he'd been having, Harvey finally chose to venture out of his office and its uninviting atmosphere, only to bite his head off for not having done what he was supposed to — managing to do it so that Mike still could not guess what exactly it was that he was being yelled at for. All that he could have coped with if only then his boss hadn't grabbed the files and spat that if Mike was not capable of completing a simple task, then he'd just do it himself.

And he stormed out — or rather marched down the corridor in the direction of the elevators, as there was no room to dramatically storm out of—, leaving Mike in a state of utter shock, because it was probably the first time (or maybe he had just chosen to forget the other times?) when work had been literally snatched from his arms. It was so _not Harvey_ to do such a thing that for a moment Mike actually believed he would spun around to give him the files back.

Before he even had the time to recover, Louis suddenly appeared in front of him to dump thousands of pages of file proofing to be done before the end of the week. Funny, it was probably the first time that Mike spoke with him since the vote that had determined Hardman's fate, and those very first words out of Louis's mouth were cold, professional and _normal_, as if nothing had happened or changed. Mike didn't like that nor did he know what he had been expecting — some heartbreaking scenes of begging for mercy and forgiveness? He had had enough of dramatisation already with Harvey stealing the files.

The thing was, Mike really hated the idea of doing the file proofing for the treacherous partner, but had no choice since, no matter how much he wanted to tell him he had a lot of stuff to do for Harvey or even run directly to his boss and ask him to strangle Louis, he could do neither of those. He had nothing to work on at the moment and he'd rather have Louis dump another _million _pages on him than risk approaching Harvey and, worse even, asking him for anything when he was so blinded with fury he might not be able to distinguish if it was really Louis he was strangling.

Tuesday, his boss was waiting for him, leaning over the walls of his cubicle, a bit humbler than the day before, and informed him they were going to court on Friday. But none of the research and tasks he was assigned to do for the trial could possibly make up for the fact that a part of his work had been done for him in the uninviting office that he had usually enjoyed sitting in before. Or for the fact that after a clearer and more detailed update Harvey had left, not making a single remark about something other than their job and not giving Mike enough time to come up with one.

And thus Wednesday he found himself sitting in his chair, staring into the emptiness, because though around him there were at least fifteen associates reading and making notes, and talking, and sipping tea and walking from place to place, like busy bees in a beehive, he felt as if he was stranded on a far away island, right in the middle of the ocean of despair.

First drama and now poetry? Maybe he should dump Pearson Hardman, convert himself and become a fake writer instead.

He didn't mind having a lot to do. He just wished he could go back home in the evening, no matter how late, to something more than weed — oh, right, he was out of weed, he needed to buy some, but the guy he had always relied on in this matter had gone missing — and cold pizza. Or that in the morning he could wake up next to a warm pillow, which had just had a married woman's head lying on it.

He felt bad about it, but he did miss Tess, even it was just a bit. He also missed Rachel, the sweet, smart, warm Rachel, who had been taking care of him before the funeral and had now developed the skills of avoiding him so well he even rarely caught a glimpse of her. He missed Harvey as well. It seemed they were never even talking to each other anymore and sometimes, though he knew it was not true, it almost felt like Harvey ceased to find pleasure in Mike's company or no longer cared about what was happening to him.

On top of that, he missed Grammy.

Mike blinked a couple of times to restore his normal sight, which had been blurred by the thoughtless staring, and went back to work.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4 **_**in which Harvey is being a bit of a dick**_

_**(Thursday)**_

Sunset came, when the two of them were sitting in Harvey's office, full of gentle sounds of good old blues from his record player, talking, their voices low, close to a whisper even, as if there had been someone sleeping on the couch who they didn't want to wake up.

Donna, happy to finally be given details on the events of last Friday night, though she had probably some of what he was telling her figured out already, reacted just the way she was supposed to — with sympathy and willingness to do whatever she could to make the situation better. She smiled with that sad smile of hers when he told her there was nothing left to do and all seemed well and in place until he looked her in the eye — and you should always look people in the eye if you want to know what they truly think or feel — and saw that deep down, she not only pitied him, but also questioned his side of the story. She thought he could have done more, he could have fought for Zoe and the only reason the whole thing had ended up the way it had was his inability to express his true feelings and expectations, and the fact he had given up so easily.

That was why he was actually glad when he watched Donna leave to get some coffee and then head straight home. He didn't like being judged, because it made him feel that he actually could have done more, but, subconsciously maybe, chose not to. He knew she didn't mean anything bad by it, it had been proven to him time and time again that she always wanted what was best for him, but a little part of Harvey still felt somehow betrayed, no matter how irrational that sounded.

He had only closed his eyes for a short moment when he heard the door open and light footsteps approach his desk, as if someone was tip-toeing across the room not to wake the non-existing sleeper. When it occurred to him the person might have been doing that not for the sake of the imaginary couch guy, but rather for his, as he might have looked like he was asleep, leaning back in his chair like that, he momentarily opened his eyes just in time to see Mike carefully placing some files on the desk.

'For the trial tomorrow?' Harvey asked and Mike almost jumped in surprise.

'Didn't mean to wake you' he nodded after the first shock had passed and it filled Harvey with a heart-warming knowledge there was still someone he could trust never to question his motives or turn on him, even if all that someone had been receiving from Harvey lately was hostility. He hadn't been seeing much of Mike in the past days — why was that again? But it didn't matter, because the kid was always going to be there, just in reach.

'Ready to kick ass in court then? We need to be there at noon' he found his voice was still low and soft, and that it had an enormous effect on his associate, who seemed to have relaxed a bit. What worried him for a short moment though was the fact that he hadn't realised Mike had been tense _before_.

'I guess' that lack of confidence was also very unusual and alarmed Harvey.

'You're saying there's something missing? Don't tell me our smoking gun has suddenly gone invalid'.

'Your smoking gun's all fine' Mike assured him and it had almost passed unnoticed by Harvey that he had said "your" and not "our". Almost. But though he had noticed it, he had absolutely no idea what to do with that observation. So he did nothing.

'Good, because we cannot lose this one' Harvey needed a win, he did. Not oblivious of the fact that this had left Mike just as unconvinced as he had been before, he added, trying to speak in his associate's tongue, the old, baseball dictum about the whole team having to stay positive and in the game ringing at the back of his head, 'Tess really counts on us'.

Mike winced.

'Tess?'

Then something seemed to have dawned on him, because the changed features of his face went back to their original state, as if they had understood that whatever had made the kid so alert had been a false alarm.

'Our client's name is Tess' Mike explained, but before Harvey got round to telling him that he already knew that, he realised his associate was addressing himself.

Harvey furrowed his eyebrows, demanding an explanation, and so Mike gave it to him:

'I slept with a girl called Tess a couple of days ago'.

'You've never told me you had a new girlfriend'. So that was it? Maybe the girl had dumped Mike all of sudden and that's why he had suffered such a strong reaction when he'd heard her name?

'She wasn't my girlfriend' Mike opposed. 'She's married'.

For a minute, Harvey not only didn't know what to say, but also what to think. The revelation appeared out of the blue and seemed almost unbelievable, because it was Mike, and Harvey knew Mike, and Harvey knew Mike's moral compass and remembered all of those times when they had fought over cases, in which it had to be decided whether to do what was best for the outcome or what was right, and how Mike would never back up easily when he was required to take actions that could lead to harming someone, even though sometimes he could be persuaded since he had, in the end, always wanted to do what Harvey wanted him to do—

'It doesn't really sound like 'getting your shit together' for me' he stood up.

'I ended it' Mike said quietly. 'It's been making me sick'.

'I fail to see how that's relevant' Harvey's voice stayed cold and emotionless, though emotions were buzzing inside of him. 'What I need from you is to be able to do your job, and if sleeping with someone else's wife doesn't get in the way of that, then I'm all in'.

Something changed in Mike's appearance, his face stiffened and when he spoke this time, his voice was tough and fierce.

'And here I was thinking you'd find it hard to cope with because of what happened to your parents'.

That was it. Harvey exploded, but didn't, like he usually did when he was looking in Mike's eyes while yelling at him, feel the need to calm down and stop himself from saying something that could hurt too much, because the strange man in whose eyes he was looking in now was not Mike, not the Mike he trusted to do what he told him to.

'If that's how you put it, then yes, I think what you did was disgusting and were you not someone I only need to keep his head low and do the job, I wouldn't be able to stand it, but here's the scoop: go ahead and sleep with all the women you want, as long as you screw them and not the cases, _I don't care._ Clear?'

The strange man stood there for a minute, motionless, staring at his boss, and then, at least in Harvey's eyes, dissolved, when the kid, who almost broke into a run to leave the office as quickly as possible, turned out to be Mike.

**Okay, I'm beginning to get sick of being so-very-close-to-almost-hating-Harvey, something has to be done about his behaviour soon or I might just use my writer's powers and HURT HIM. That's right, Harvey. No matter how damn hot you are, you should never treat Mike badly or you'll pay.**

**Reviews are, like always, welcome.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Wow, that was quite a delay - will you believe me if I tell you I've never meant to keep you waiting that long? But some things happened and I was deprived of Internet access for almost two weeks. Sorry!  
Thank you for all your comments, follows etc., as always!**

**hikeyosemite: well, there's a long way from contemplating suicide to commiting it, so I think we may cut us some slack and still enjoy it :) You're very understanding when it comes to Harvey, that's really cute.**

**kasinka613: mam już dość kopania szczeniaczka w samym serialu, bo nawet jeśli sobie na to zasłużył, to przecież... przecież tak nie można!**

**So, enjoy! That one's dedicated to Donna, because She. Is. Awesome.**

**Chapter 5 **_**in which Donna is, like, totally awesome**_

_**(Thursday)**_

Mike stormed out of the office — at least that's what he'd want to believe his dramatic exit looked like to Harvey, as in fact it was more of a run-away departure than any other.

He stumbled down the corridor until he had reached the men's restroom, which remained to be his refuge, the shelter in which he could always hide from all the hurtful words and pressure, and people judging him for each and every thing he said or did. He didn't even bother to check whether or not he was alone. At such a late hour another human being's presence was highly improbable if not nearly impossible, especially if the important, well-paid employees who occupied this floor were concerned — they should all be long gone, off to charitable parties or expensive restaurants, where they would charm the hell out of their clients, but no matter how hard they tried, they would never beat Harvey, Mike thought, because Harvey was awesome at charming clients, simply the best.

But he hadn't been exactly charming for the past couple of days, had he? Especially not tonight. A little Harvey, who seemed to always be sitting at the back of Mike's head, whispering legal advice and reminding him to straighten his back so that he would not look like a kicked puppy, but like a kickass lawyer, kept repeating the words that his full-sized original had yelled at Mike a couple of minutes ago, like a needle stuck on the record. He tried to wipe out the memories with icy cold water, struggling to hush the voice in his head that not only wouldn't let him get rid of the raising sense of guilt in his stomach, but also insisted that he still looked professional and didn't get his tie wet, because he was a reflection of him and all that — but all it did was help Mike pretend the little drops of wet substance running down his cheeks were nothing but strangely salty tap water. Nails and claws may break my bones, but words will never hurt me, huh? Who came up with that ridiculous line in the first place? No matter how many times he told himself words were, especially when you were a lawyer, meaningful and meaningless in the same time, just a layer you would put on the actual _true _truth to make it sound better or smarter or something, it still felt like a bone in his body was being broken each and every time he remembered the 'disgusting' and the 'go ahead and sleep', and the 'I don't care', and there was probably no way to alleviate the pain but wait until all the bones in his body had been broken — there couldn't be _that_ many.

Why had he even spoken to Harvey in the first place? Why had he let his little affair slip? Or maybe he had knowingly done it, so deprived of another person's warmth that he'd gone for it and sought consolation and forgiveness for his sins in his boss, even though he had known very well he'd be poking the bear? Did it even _matter_ anymore? He could not go back and avoid the harsh conversation that had surely hurt their relationship — to what extent he was not able to say yet —, nor could he hold hope that Harvey would forget about what happened before tomorrow — he wasn't exactly in the 'water under the bridge' phase he would, thank the almighty God for that, go through from time to time.

Mike shut his eyes closed. He felt as if he had finally hit the bottom of a horrendously deep sea he had been sinking in since Grammy had died. Some time ago it still seemed like Harvey would be the one to throw him a lifebelt, but now he was just one of the many things that had gone wrong and dragged Mike further and further down. Grammy dying. Rachel getting mad at him. The affair with Tess. Pot. The stupid case which had made him lose it to such an extent that he had forced Harvey to break the law in order to save him. Tess leaving. Harvey getting — what? Angry? Disappointed? Deceived? All of those at once? Green soap. Cars crashing. Warm pillows. Little, plastic bags, hair gel, that damn tomato sauce.

A sudden wave of loneliness hit him. It was funny, how loneliness could actually, physically hurt. It made him feel exposed and prone to being hurt, because, Mike decided, we all protected each other in some way: many times unknowingly, like how Louis had never bothered to look into Mike's credentials and thus kept his secret from himself; other times willingly, like he thought he and Harvey would always protect each other, but they had both obviously failed at that since Mike had done the very thing Harvey abhorred because of the way it had once hurt him and his family, and Harvey hadn't been able to notice there was far more to protecting than making sure one wouldn't get sentenced for fraud or killed by raging clients.

Mike fought the urge to wrap his arms around the rest of his pathetically shivery body. He was alone. There was _no-one_.

'Mike?' he instantly turned his head in the direction from which the voice had come, but all he saw was a blurred, reddish, humanly shape. 'You okay, sweetie?'

He rubbed his eyes to take a second look, but he didn't exactly have to, as there were not many people who could call him 'sweetie', plus the buzzing sound which had been filling his ears along with the little Harvey's yelling, making it pretty much impossible to distinguish voices, was gone.

Only then had his instincts finally kicked in and he once again spun his head, this time to hide his face that must have, when he thought about it, looked like a complete mess. It was, of course, far too late for that, but he would never forgive himself if he hadn't at least tried.

'What are you doing here?' He was sure he had checked the little drawing on the door twice, so he must have been in the right bathroom — right?

'I saw you leave Harvey's office when I went back to get my things' Donna said, eyeing him up cautiously. She pressed her lips together and for a brief moment she seemed to be hovering over the point of some intense emotion gaining control over her, what emotion exactly Mike couldn't be sure of, but then she gave up and spat the word he thought he would never hear coming from her:

'That _dick_'.

And then she was suddenly all over him — no matter how weird it sounded when you put it like that, thought Mike —, fixing his tie and lapels, and collar, passing him paper towels so that he could lead his face to an acceptable state, and even letting him take a few sips from the coffee mug she had been holding in her hand when she'd entered.

'Did you just call Harvey a 'dick'?' he took another sip of the miraculously hot coffee, which made him feel warm in the stomach.

'He deserved it' she said fiercely.

'But you don't know what happened' he protested, not quite sure as to why he was protecting Harvey even though it was nice to have someone criticize not him, but his boss for a change, 'so you can't _know_'.

'Oh, I know' Donna let out a sarcastic laugh.

An alarm bell went off somewhere in his head and for a moment he felt nauseous when he thought his subconscious might have noticed someone else walk into the restroom — someone like Louis or, worse even, Harvey, or maybe — God help him — Jessica, though it was hard to think of a reason for her to confuse bathrooms —, but a quick glance shot at the door told him this was not what had upset his inner self. He switched his gaze back to Donna and in her face he saw the thing that had made him so alert — a mixture of concern, sympathy and fury, which is always the most dangerous of all.

'Donna, you're not going to go to Harvey now, are you?' her hesitation gave him enough of an answer. 'Look, I did something I should never have done and I hurt him — you should know that, I mean, you always do! — so I'm the dick here too, okay?' he felt the salty tap water come to his eyes once again. He aggressively shook his head to make it go away. 'You don't even know what I did, right?' He could have simply told her, but, judging by the last reaction he had received when he had uncovered some details about his recent doings, or the last two, actually, it would not make her happy and he didn't feel like having yet another person change their attitude towards him because of that one, stupid, awful mistake.

'But that shouldn't matter' argued Donna, her tone of voice less mellow than before. Mike wasn't sure what she could have possibly meant by that, but his mind was already set on convincing her how bad of an idea it was to tell Harvey about any of the events following Mike's departure tonight, so he didn't give it too much thought.

'I just don't feel like having to deal with Harvey again tonight, okay? Let's— let's give him a break, I'm sure he's had a rough week'.

'So have you' she looked him in his red eye and so he looked her in hers, and both of their faces softened when they smiled at each other. There was maybe not much to smile about, but it felt like it had been ages since Mike had shared a genuine smile with another human being. 'Alright' Donna agreed finally.

'I think I've drunk all your coffee' he confessed apologetically, looking into the empty mug.

'You little bastard' she smiled at him again and Mike suddenly thought about how beautiful she was and he tightened his hold of the mug so that she couldn't get it back and leave him in the awfully empty bathroom — alone again.

'Don't know about you, but I'm calling it a day then' _Please don't go. _'Wanna be a gentleman for once and walk me home? It's got pretty dark'.

And so they marched through the dark alleys of New York, chatting about how they liked Swiss chocolate and pasta, and how disgusting those hot dogs Harvey always ate were, and Mike looked at Donna in amazement, wondering how she didn't know anything about what was going on with him, but she still seemed to know exactly what he needed. Maybe that was Donna's real gift, that was how she always _knew_ everything — she didn't _have to_ know everything to make out what really mattered.

Reaching her home was inevitable, but Mike still kind of hoped it would never happen. But it did, and Donna told him goodnight, and be careful on your way back, and see you tomorrow, and almost gave him a kiss on the cheek, but changed her mind in the very last moment. He watched her climb down the stairs and when she had disappeared in the shadow, he turned around and began his walk home, a bit sad, but full of positive energy all the same. He was not alone. He would go to work tomorrow, Donna would smile at him, he would go through the day without committing any more stupid mistakes, without breaking apart in the restroom like a five year old, and he would somehow fix this thing with Harvey and then with Rachel, and the pieces of his life would finally fall back into place.

The optimism faded when he got back to his empty apartment; the darkness he had found mysterious and sensual before was now beginning to look like the metaphorical dark place he had been in for the past days, like a monster that prayed on his fears, anxiety and remorse. The moment he'd had with Donna suddenly felt like much less of a deal in comparison to all the bad things that had happened that evening, and so he soon found himself lying on the coach with a cigarette in his hand, trying out the new pot he had bought the day before. Damn.

Tomorrow was going to be better.


	6. Chapter 6

**I wouldn't call this one a chapter, it's more of an intro. But whatever.**

**Chapter 6**_** in which Mike is not feeling very well**_

_**(Friday)**_

Mike was not feeling very well.

It had started sometime around morning, when he had been taking a quick shower. A sick feeling in his stomach, as if there was something there that wanted to get out very badly. He even wondered whether it could be the eighth Nostromo passenger, but indigestion was far more likely, though not that cool. On the other hand, he couldn't remember eating anything that could cause indigestion — well, there was the disgusting hot dog for lunch, one that he had had to eat alone. He didn't actually like any sort of hot dogs much and hardly ever ate them, but it reminded him of Harvey, yet another example of items stealing other people's identity, and it really had made him feel a bit less alone. Anyway, Harvey ate those all the time, so there couldn't be anything off with them, right?

There was one other idea, stuck in his mind, an idea he decided not to give too much thought to, because it made him even sicker.

What made him sicker was also the perspective of seeing Harvey, an encounter that would probably be filled with awkward silence, as Harvey must have still been mad at him _and_ in a bad mood. Mike got the being mad part, but he seemed to get a bit impatient waiting for Harvey's spirits to improve, as he had been under the cloud for the whole week. Maybe it would have been easier to bear if Harvey had told him what was it that was bothering him, beside Mike screwing up and sleeping with a married woman, of course. But his boss wasn't the kind of person to openly talk about emotions, Mike wasn't the kind of person he would choose to do that with, and there were some things you could not just say and then get over them without talking them through somehow, but his boss wasn't the kind of person to openly talk and so forth, a little vicious circle of their own.

The feeling in his stomach wouldn't go away, and it wasn't only the anxiety, he knew that. He had a terrible headache and he even caught himself shaking a bit when he was getting off the bike. Maybe he needed more sleep. Maybe he needed to vent, just like Harvey had been doing for the past few days, using him as a victim. But Mike wasn't angry. He was just worn out and maybe still a bit lost.

He bought Donna some coffee on his way to the office. She deserved it. Coffee and a box of Swiss chocolates. And a flower.

Mike swallowed hard and entered the Pearson Hardman premises, still not feeling very well.

**Chapter 7 coming soon - I have to make up for that horrendous delay, haven't I? Reviews are very welcome :)**


	7. Chapter 7

**Wow, guys, you'll spoil me with all these follows!**

**kasinka613: Donny chyba nie da się nie kochać! _Ona_ miałaby nie przemówić Harvey'emu do rozumu?**

**camitake: a warm welcome to you - I hope the update is quick enough :)**

**Seriously, the past weeks weren't what you might call the most cheerful period in one's life, so it's really nice to come back here and be greeted like that. Thank you and here it is then, Harvey finally not being as repulsive as before (hooray!).**

**Chapter 7**_** in which Harvey decides not to be an ass (or a dick)**_

_**(Friday)**_

So Harvey knew he had overreacted.

Mike had, of course, done something disgusting and off-putting, and just simply _wrong_. But Harvey had been giving him shit since Monday and even if he had deserved some of it, it wasn't Harvey's job to punish him for those kind of mistakes.

Besides, he had just lost his grandmother, the most important person in his life, and needed support rather than guilt. Support wasn't exactly Harvey's kind of thing, but he reckoned he could give it a try someday.

Plus, and yes, Harvey had given it quite a lot of thought last night, sleeping with a married woman or not, Mike was still _Mike_. _His_ associate. The one he was ready to give up his entire career for. The one he felt this awful urge to protect, rationalizing it with all the crap about being responsible for his employee. Still the same Mike. Right?

It was eight in the morning and he was walking past Donna's desk, deep in thoughts, when he heard her saying in a sing-a-song voice:

'Hello, Harvey'.

There was something malicious in that tone of voice. He broke into a halt.

'Hello, Donna'.

She just stared at him, as if waiting for him to guess what was it that he had done wrong, because that obviously was the reason she was giving him such a sarcastic welcome.

There was a single, red rose in a glass of water next to her computer. He pointed at it, desperate to avoid having the conversation they were about to have. 'Got yourself a new Romeo?'

'It's from Mike' she wasn't even blinking, her eyes were so fixed on Harvey. 'He came here this morning and brought me Swiss chocolates and a coffee. Seems to pay off, you know, being actually nice to him from time to time'.

There it was.

'Look, Donna, you don't know what we were talking about yesterday, you weren't there—'

'Right, I wasn't!' she finally burst out. 'But you know what? I don't _care_, because whatever he has done, that kid doesn't deserve the shit you've been giving him. He's broken and lonely, and doesn't have anyone to rely on, because the person he should be able to trust is too preoccupied with their love affairs and silly dilemmas to even notice him!'

'Donna—'

'Don't you _Donna _me' she cut him off. 'I have no interest in your side of the story, because whatever you have to say won't change the fact that I found your dear associate crying in the bathroom yesterday evening—'

'_Crying_?' his heart sank — he may have been an ass, but he never thought he would make Mike cry. He couldn't even picture Mike crying — sure, there had been a couple of times when his eyes had got a bit watery, but Harvey's imagination refused to produce an image involving actual tears. And why would Mike cry in the first place? It wasn't like he had _believed _all the crap Harvey had told him yesterday?

'And he was so _delighted_ when I asked him to walk me home' Donna decided to ignore him. 'We were talking about food, Harvey!' she let out a chortle, but didn't sound amused at all. 'What we liked to eat, and yet I haven't seen him that cheerful in the past two weeks!'

Harvey sighed.

'I'll take him out for dinner tonight, fine? Satisfied?'

'Oh, I know you will. I've already booked you a table in that Italian restaurant you like. Mike mentioned liking Italian' he just shook his head, smiling slightly at her foresight. 'I want you to fix the damage you have done. I don't care how, but fix it. And if I see him crying in the restroom again, I'm going to make you regret the day you were born. Clear?'

It was quite amazing how Mike managed to get people to like him — and not even like him, but stand up for him in any situation. Donna had never threatened Harvey for the sake of somebody else. And, come to think of it, he had never thought she would do that, up till now, because this was about Mike and everything that was about Mike was an exception to each and every rule.

He nodded his head and she seemed satisfied with that silent approval, because she let him take a chocolate from the box Mike had given her. She still wasn't smiling though — she must have known, because that was Donna and she always did, that not everything was clear and in order in Harvey's head, and there was still this resentment he felt towards Mike, the resentment he had no idea what do to with. But he would come to terms with it at some point. Probably.

He thought about Zoe. He wasn't very good at coming to terms with stuff.

Mike avoided him like the plague for the rest of the morning and Harvey had no intention of chasing him over the premises, so, having in mind the undisputable fact that they had a trial at noon, a fact his associate could not do anything about, he patiently waited. It wasn't before they were in the car together, Mike pulled into one corner, trying to be as far away from him as he could manage, that they finally got the chance to speak. Then again, there appeared the question of who was it to swallow the pride and break the silence first, which was thankfully soon resolved by the simple truth — Mike had a physical incapability of staying shut.

'Nice weather'.

He would have so mocked him for talking about the weather if it had been any other day. 'True'.

The return of the awkward silence. That was no way to lead this conversation.

'I can't imagine you were desperate enough to bring up the weather' Harvey said with a smirk after two awfully quiet minutes had passed. He studied Mike's face carefully. Will he smile or won't he smile? It did not seem like a lot to go with, but Harvey knew very well the answer to that question was to determine whether or not Mike had believed his words last evening.

It took some time, but the kid granted him with a little smile at last.

'Yeah, me neither. So, what are you doing tonight? Any plans for the Friday evening?' Harvey couldn't tell if it was Mike trying to find something neutral to talk about, or Mike trying to learn something about his personal life all of sudden; no matter which of those, it still sounded very artificial, and Harvey feared that no matter what the kid chose to say, it would all turn out to be just as unnatural, as if after last evening they had forgotten how they used to talk with each other.

'Yes, actually. You?' Harvey said carefully, thinking hard before pronouncing every word.

'Nah, I'm just going home' Mike shrugged, a certain sadness to that shrug making it obvious the evening was not something he anticipated. 'What are you doing then?'

'I'm having dinner'. Why did it still feel like they were walking through a swamp, each step being a risk of falling in?

'Oh, alone or with a client? Or a woman maybe?'

Okay, that was definitely Mike trying to learn something about his personal life. Or maybe it was an attempt to find out more about what stood behind his hostile behaviour? But Mike couldn't have known about Zoe, he couldn't have suspected anything. 'Neither, in fact. I'm meeting with a friend'.

He said that without thinking much, something that didn't happen to the great Harvey Specter quite often, and was bewildered with the outcome. Had he really said '_friend'_? God, he should go and hide somewhere to get _his_ shit together now or he'd start to babble like Mike late in the evening, when he was so sleepy he could control only a quarter of what was coming out of his mouth as opposed to the regular seventy percent.

'A friend? Well, wish you a good time then' there was his silver lining — Mike was soon going to get even more embarrassed than he was, and maybe that little bone he had mindlessly thrown at him would somehow make up for he had to listen to last night and they would find a way to go back to where they went off.

The driver pulled off by the impressive monument of the Supreme Court of Justice and before Mike began to get out of the car, Harvey sighed and informed him drily 'I'll meet you outside the office at half past six. Keep your suit decent throughout the day, it's an elegant restaurant'.

And after that, because he had always been keen on good finish lines, he got out of the car, which wasn't that majestic or final after all as the disoriented kid was already on the pavement, asking questions.

'Wait, what do you mean? You want me to come over to dinner? But won't your friend mind? Is it a table for three people and that's why you're taking me, because there's some weird rule in expensive restaurants that you can't have two people sitting by a table for three?'

How did he even come up with such ridiculous ideas?

'And here I was, thinking you can actually use that freakish brain of yours. It's a table for two, why would I book a table for three if there were just one person coming along?'

'Wait, do you mean it'll be just the two of us?'

'Congratulations, smart-ass. I knew you would get there eventually'.

'And that's what you meant—' Mike fell silent when his face suddenly turned red. That totally made up for the embarrassment Harvey had experienced himself, while in the same time being so _Mike _that for a moment he could not recall how on earth could he ever lay his eyes upon that face and not recognize his associate in it.

Maybe it really _was_ going to be okay soon.

Just when he thought that, he felt something heavy on his back and was almost knocked over by his associate; he managed to turn around just in time to catch him. His hands gripped the skinny arms with a force he had never suspected having, and he had to fight his instincts to make them loosen the grip a bit so that he would not leave marks on the ironed suit — or on the skin. Mere seconds later Mike regained his balance and stepped back, looking even more embarrassed.

'Wow' Harvey uttered finally. 'What was _that_?'

'Nothing' he refused to look him in the eye. 'I've stumbled, sorry'.

Harvey just shook his head and waved it off, but continued to eye Mike cautiously throughout the trial.

**Ha, I guess I'll leave you at this point for a day or two, what do you say? :)**


	8. Chapter 8

**OK, firstly, I have to set something straight - in the first chapter I promised you 9 chapters. Probably no-one remembers that, but just so we are clear - I can't count. In my lovely little Word document I had two 'chapter 7's. So there'll be 10. Chapters, that is. And an epilogue.**

**Okay, now that we've sorted that out...**

**kasinka613: miło jest wreszcie pisać o miłym Harvey'm, milej pewnie nawet niż wreszcie o nim czytać. "Rozkoszna mike'owatość" to, uważam, termin znakomity, należałoby dodać go do słownika, cieszę się też, że udało mi się uchwycić Harvey'ego, to taka trudna postać, bo nie jesteśmy przyzwyczajeni do patrzenia na wydarzenia z jego punktu widzenia...**

**ShadowCat17: Thank you, glad you liked it!**

**hikeyosemite: that _was_ quite cute, wasn't it? ;)**

**Stroma: wow, I'm being evaluated! Thank you :)**

**Chapter 8 **_**in which Louis is sad and Mike is happy**_

_**(Friday)**_

It was six in the afternoon and Mike was kneeling down the toilet, happily vomiting.

It wasn't, of course, the vomiting part that made him so cheerful — that was the part that ruined his moment of sheer happiness, really —, it was the fact that he was going out for dinner tonight. He liked going out for dinners, because that usually meant some good food.

Not only was he going to dinner, he was going to dinner with someone, which meant not sitting at home, having weed as his only companion, but actually being with another human being, talking to them and not thinking too much about his grandmother and stuff. It meant not being lonely, and Mike now knew there was nothing worse than loneliness.

In addition to that, the person he was going to dinner with was, in fact, the great Harvey Specter, who had voluntarily agreed to accompany him — and not even agreed, he himself had come up with the idea. It had been unexpected and confusing, truth to be told, since they had not been on the best terms with each other for quite a while, to put it _very _mildly, and now suddenly a dinner invitation — but maybe Harvey, too, had grown tired of it all and decided to make the first step. Though, in fact, it would have been perfectly okay if he had just come over to Mike's cubicle and told him they could walk down the hall together that day — Mike would have welcomed it with open arms. He really was craving for attention, wasn't he?

There was also the thing Harvey had said when inviting him, something Mike couldn't get out of his head, but doubted he had actually heard right. If he had, that would make this Friday one of the most perfect days of his life. God, he was _pathetic_.

The day overall had been great: the trial had been a huge success, Donna had loved the chocolates — when Mike had been walking past her empty desk later that afternoon, he'd noticed there was only one left. He would have used his Master degree in sneakiness to sense the gorgeous taste of Swiss chocolate on his tongue when he'd still had the chance, but weird things had been happening to his stomach, inevitably leading him to the situation he was in now, kneeling on the cold, bathroom floor.

The fact that there was obviously something wrong with him didn't matter when presented next to the happy mental image of spending the evening with Harvey, even though the rational part of his mind did its best to spoil it with the question of how was he going to have fun in a restaurant with his stomach rejecting anything Mike tried to satisfy it with.

Whatever, he could always tell Harvey he wasn't hungry.

Mike flushed the toilet, washed his face and found a pack of chewing gum in his pocket, only to see it was completely empty. Hoping water would eradicate the smell, he left the bathroom, a wide grin on his face, because what were losing your balance, vomiting or any other physical conditions when you had experienced the real torture that was loneliness?

He nearly bumped into Harvey, who was awaiting the elevator, riffling through some files, but for Mike it seemed as if he had just magically popped out right in front of him. He managed to avoid the collision by an inch, breaking into a sudden halt, and then stood there for a moment, observing Harvey from up close — very close —, not quite sure as to what had just happened. Was he really disoriented enough not to notice his boss? Would have been funny if he _had_ walked in him though — all those papers scattering around like confetti...

'Would you mind?' Harvey was still focused on the files, but he must have seen Mike approach him, or feel his breath on his face maybe. 'There is a thing called personal space, ever heard of it?'

Mike took a step back. Funny, how long it took him to realise the closeness may be seen as awkward. It was not quite usual for him, being this slow.

Harvey looked up and what he saw must have upset him somehow, because he furrowed an eyebrow in that upset way of his.

'What's wrong with you? You look like shit'.

'Thanks' Mike rolled his eyes. 'I'm fine, just a little sleep-deprived'.

That was a clever lie, at least the cleverest he could come up with at the moment, and Harvey seemed convinced when the elevator door bell rang and they walked into it together.

'We could always take a rain check' he said, pressing one of the many buttons on the control panel, and it, yet again, took Mike a good moment to understand he was talking about their dinner tonight.

'No!' he exclaimed. Harvey shot him a surprised glance, so he lowered his voice before continuing, 'I mean, there's no need to'.

Because they could not postpone the dinner, no, under no circumstances should that happen, and Harvey surely knew that too: it was no longer only about Mike spending yet another evening all by himself on his miserable couch, but also about Harvey and all the crap he'd been having going on, and about the fact that the talking was still so difficult between them and if there was any chance to stop that downfall and turn it around, then it would be right now, tonight, this evening and not any other, because after the weekend came and then went, more things would happen and they'd sink deeper in the loneliness and resent, and, something which came to Mike's mind just now, filling him with fear, who knows, maybe he wouldn't even be here after the weekend...

No, that was stupid. There was nothing wrong with him, nothing wrong. He told himself that a couple of times and almost believed it really was the lack of sleep that caused the vomiting, the pain and the haziness.

'Have it your way then' Harvey shrugged and once again buried himself in the world of numbers and precedents, or whatever it was that he was reading. The elevator reached Mike's floor and when he had just thought the interrogation was over, his boss stopped the closing door with an open palm and fixed his eyes on Mike one more time. He must have looked exceptionally bad to make him so persistent.

'You sure you're okay?'

And Mike really, really wanted to tell him the truth that was eating him from the inside, like the Nostromo passenger, because he feared — yes, he had realised he was, in fact, properly afraid — it would come out of his stomach at some point, and things coming out of one's stomach didn't usually do any good. But he could not let it slip, not after what had happened the day before, not when they finally seemed to be getting somewhere new and better. So instead he said:

'Yes, Harvey, I'm alright! I know appearance matters, but can't a person even look bad from time to time around here?'

He instantly regretted it, of course, and kept on regretting all the way to Louis's office, where he was to drop some files — the proof-reading the senior partner had told him to complete before the weekend — and then head to dinner. Yes, dinner. He needed to keep thinking about the dinner as an ultimate aim, a glorious goal, his Promised Land.

The fact that he had learned from his little almost-collision and slowed down was the only thing that saved him from walking into Rachel, who chose to leave Louis's office in the same moment Mike chose to enter it. It was quite awkward, the way they tried to go around each other without looking in each other's eyes, but when they finally succeeded, none of them felt as eager to lose the sight of another as they had before, and so they stood in Louis's door, Rachel's gaze somewhere on Mike's feet, unsure about what should be done or said next.

'Hi' Mike said.

'Hi' she answered, risking a quick glance at his face. 'You don't look good'.

He didn't feel like going over his appearance and lack of sleep again, so he changed the subject:

'I ended things with Tess last weekend, you know'.

He could just as well be talking to a brick wall. Not even a single one of Rachel's features changed, as if she was not paying attention to his words, and when she spoke, it seemed clear she had decided simply not to acknowledge the fact that Mike had said something at all.

'You look as if you had one foot in the grave already' she noted and Mike knew it was just a way of finding out whether or not he was okay, but it had still hit the raw nerve, the place he felt had never been as exposed as today, with all the dark thoughts running through his head.

'I'm fine, just a bit sleep-deprived' he said, working hard on not allowing her to see that he had winced at her words.

'Well, I don't really care' she shrugged and Mike felt suddenly so very tired of people trying to convince him — and themselves, too — that they didn't care, when it was so damn obvious they did. So he shook his head and entered Louis's office without another word, wondering whether or not Rachel was still standing there, surprised he had just walked away, angry that he deprived her of the possibility of walking away herself. But he did not look back to see. The situation was tricky and if there was any way of making it right, then it was by taking it slow, horrendously slow. And though it maybe didn't look like it, their short conversation had been a baby step, and knowing that gained Mike control over the situation, the control he had lost one hell of a time ago. It was nice. Being of control.

Louis was definitely not of control over anything, and it became so painfully visible when he glanced at his face. He gave him the files, Louis nodded and Mike was about to leave, but something stopped him. Maybe it was some basic humanity and compassion, maybe the fact that he was happy right now and wanted to spread the joy, or maybe because it seemed like a good day to forgive.

'You okay, Louis?' he asked then in a soft voice, knowing it was sometimes just what a person needed to hear to suddenly start being okay.

'No' Louis said after a while and looked at Mike. Damn, didn't work. 'But you look like shit'.

Why was everybody so obsessed with him looking bad today? Should he be flattered by all this unexpected attention?

'I'm fine' he said, but Louis had already lost interest in him; he was not so sure if he'd even known Mike was still there. Then it occurred to him it was unlikely to be _his_ forgiveness that Louis needed. Too bad, because Harvey had probably used all his forgiveness reserves for the day and Mike sure as hell didn't pity Louis enough to share.

A wave of sharp pain hit him, radiating from his stomach to all other parts of the body. Praying he would not throw up in the middle of a senior partner's office, he bended forward. Louis wasn't paying attention to him, he was so focused on a ballet ticket he was holding in his hand — or maybe it was just something to lay his sight on and really he was deep in thoughts about something very different. Still, to Mike, the whole situation seemed like a scene from a ballet show — a backstabber, an oath-breaker, consumed by guilt, suffering the consequences of his own actions...

...wait, was that Louis or maybe himself? No, that was supposed to be Louis.

...so busy with himself and contemplating what he has lost that he refuses to see the dancer, who is spinning in pirouettes around him, almost moaning in pain...

..._was it _Louis?

Blinded with pain, Mike reaches for something to hold on to. The something is hard and wooden, probably Louis's desk. Is the dancer going to be sick? No, ballet protagonists don't get sick, they may only perform some kind of a sick dance, though how would such a dance look like Mike did not know.

The traitor becomes aware of the fact something's off and looks at the desperate dancer. He says something, but everybody knows they don't speak in ballet shows. Mike can only assume, or read from the shape of his mouth...

He reaches with another hand, unsure whether he'd be able to support himself with just one, but instead of the hard desk it is met with the files he has previously put there. They fall all the way down to the floor with a swish.

The dancer wants to say that he's just sleep-deprived, but it would sound so silly in the current situation that he chooses not to.

Mike doesn't make a swish sound. It's more of a thud.

The curtain falls.

**Okay, there was not much Louis in that one, but Rachel suddenly appeared out of the blue and something had to be done about her, since she's probably a bit more important to Mike than Louis is... (though I strongly believe they both really love each other deep down) Anyway, read and review, and don't stress out too much, I wouldn't end the whole thing up badly after having raised hopes for a good ending! (Or would I...?)**


	9. Chapter 9

**Hello again!**

**kasinka613: oto i Harvey pędzący na ratunek, za to o obopólnej miłości Mike'a i Louis'a już nic nie ma, mam jednak nadzieję, że ostatni odcinek zaspokoił na takowy potrzeby :)**

**CaribbeanTrinidadian: I'm updating, I'm updating! Thanks for the review :)**

**All of you amazing readers: getting closer and closer to the end feels sad, but what can you do?**

**Chapter 9**_** in which Harvey is freaking out**_

_**(Friday)**_

Harvey first glanced at Donna's empty chair, then at the large stacks of files on his desk, then at his watch. It was almost half past six, the work was done, his secretary had gone home for the weekend, taking the single rose with her, and he was ready to head to dinner.

Only Mike probably was not. Knowing him, he was still at his desk, buried beneath paperwork someone else had dumped on him, listening to lame music on his headphones and shooting exasperated glances at the clock, waiting for a hero like a textbook damsel in distress.

He was supposed to be nice to his associate tonight, so he headed to the rescue, deep in thoughts about Zoe, marriages, being what others think you are and generally all the stuff he should not be thinking about, and was only brought back to reality when walking next to Louis's office. First, he heard a thud. Then something resembling a stifled scream or gasp of surprise and terror. He spun around and approached the glass door, intending only to look through it to check if everything had been okay, since he did not want to risk getting close to Louis tonight, which would probably not be safe for either of them, but when in the dim light he saw the partner bending next to the desk, his arms stiff, and still couldn't make out what could have happened, he decided to throw caution to the wind — or even send it all to hell — and opened the door without thinking twice.

Before he had the chance to inquire into the matter though, he saw what it was that Louis was bending over and the world began spinning, a bit like on the merry-go-rounds Harvey used to enjoy back when he was a kid. Only merry-go-rounds had never made him sick.

'Call 911' he ordered without even glancing at Louis, hoping he would understand it was him whom Harvey had been addressing, and then knelt next to Mike, who was also kneeling, one of his hands still on Louis's desk, the other searching for something in the air, its movements hysterical and probably uncontrolled. He scanned Mike carefully, noted his bloody eyes with dark rings around them, his scorched lips, open and gasping for breath, his pale cheeks, his trembling knees, which didn't look like they could hold him upright for much longer. That he surely was right about, since bare seconds later Mike collapsed and would have hit his head against the floor had Harvey not caught him, letting him rest upon his chest. He then sensed a subtle odour of vomit coming from the kid's mouth; he looked around the room but saw nothing. The kid must have thrown up earlier; but what in God's name had happened to him?

'Mike, can you hear me? Can you hear me?' there was a spark of recognition in his eyes, so he continued 'Mike, you need to tell me what happened. What's wrong with you? What happened?'

The kid choked on his own tears of pain and exhaustion, as if he didn't have enough trouble breathing already, but tried to form a comprehensible response. Unluckily, all that Harvey managed to distinguish from the coughing and gasping for air was his own name, each time pronounced in a slightly different manner and carrying a meaning he could not understand. He lay a finger on Mike's neck and felt his heart racing; he touched his forehead and nearly burnt himself; he loosened the skinny tie and unbuttoned the white shirt near the neck, not quite aware of what he was doing, still repeating like a mantra:

'Calm down, Mike, calm down and tell me what happened', praying Mike would soon catch enough breath to make another attempt, praying he would catch some breath at all; _God, please _he thought, though he had never been religious, _not him, not him, not him._

'Harvey—the pot—I bought—new pot—' he wheezed, determined to deliver the message, 'I think—there—something off—'.

'Shhh' Harvey cut him off, talking probably did not serve him well, while in the same time trying to recall each and every detail of each and every story he had ever read or heard about drug additives, but there were not many, just the general image of people adding different kinds of shit to all kinds of weed, dangerous, toxic shit. But it wasn't like it happened very often, you had to be exceptionally unlucky to come across pot like that...

Mike was exceptionally unlucky. Or exceptionally lucky. Never anything in between.

He grabbed him tighter, forming a magic boundary with his arms, one that would stop anyone from snatching Mike from him. He did not know who this 'anyone' could possibly be, but whoever it was, Harvey went into the aggressive defence mode and wanted to flip him the bird, because there was no way _in hell_ he was going to let the mysterious someone win. But, since it was a battle for breath mostly, he had to soon loosen his grip, seeing he was only squeezing air out of Mike, and when he realised that, he suddenly felt so completely helpless. Harvey was not the kind of person who could sit back and watch, nor was he ever able to give up on something he truly wanted or valued, and maybe that was one of the qualities that made him such a good lawyer, but here and now, he had no skills or tools to win this fight, and that was just _not fair._

He distinctly noted Mike still uttering some single words between one gasp and the other, most of them, from what he understood, about him being sorry — though Harvey could not know what it was that Mike was sorry about, maybe about the pot, or maybe sorry in general — and not being able to breathe. Then the kid suddenly moved, the tip of his head inches from breaking Harvey's nose, likely because of the wet, warm substance he must have felt on his lips and chin by now, as it was running from his nose all the way down. Harvey instinctively scanned the room for a box of tissues, but then simply bended Mike forward a bit, so that he would not choke on the blood.

'You'll just leave Louis a nice souvenir on the carpet. Now focus on breathing, okay?' Mike's arms weren't in the air anymore, they were now holding on to Harvey with all the force an oxygen deprived young man could put in a grasp, his fingers like nails on the skin of Harvey's forearms, as if that grasp was all he had, the only thing that stopped him from falling— _no._ Warm blood was dripping on the fabric of Harvey's trousers.

He kept on repeating the same, soothing words, all along the lines of 'the ambulance will be here soon', 'you'll be fine', 'it's okay' and all that unconvincing crap, but in his ears, they all sounded awfully like yet another 'not him'.

He didn't even notice the paramedics until one of them snatched Mike from his arms and put him on white stretchers. It wasn't until then that he realised Louis was still in the room, pale and scared, and that quite a crowd had formed outside of his office, people peeking through the door and trying to gain information on what had happened. They made some room for the paramedics and Mike to come through, and Harvey needed to hurry if he wanted to get through before the gap had closed, but Louis barricaded the entrance, in his hand Mike's messenger's bag, which he passed on to Harvey and said:

'I've already told them what happened, they say they're going to intoxicate him somehow' he tipped his nose and continued, 'Let me know how he's doing'.

Harvey watched him for a minute, his mind blank, and then nodded 'Thanks, Louis'.

They would not let him ride in the ambulance with Mike at first, but he was not paying attention to any of their words and at last they just let him be. Nothing could grant Harvey access to the hospital itself though — the paramedics disappeared somewhere in the back door and he was stuck at the reception, clutching the messenger's bag, unable to charm the passing nurses so that they'd tell him which room was Mike in, what was happening to him, or, even, whether or not he was still... okay.

Funny, how everything can go so wrong all of sudden. One minute they were going to dinner together, another Mike was bleeding and trembling on the floor. Only it hadn't happened all of sudden. There had been signs. Countless signs, which Harvey hadn't noticed or had chosen to disregard.

And it dawned on him, the epiphany filled him with icy cold water that burnt his insides. It was all his fault. Every last bit of it. Had he spoken with Mike more last week. Had he not been so obsessed with Zoe. Had he not treated him the way he had when he'd found out about his affair. Had he seen something bad coming. Who gave a rat's ass about Zoe's flee or some adulterous woman and her husband anyway?

Alright, he did. And that was probably fine, but now all that stuff he had been giving a rat's ass about last week didn't seem to matter anymore, which was scary. Maybe the same had happened to Zoe. Maybe the importance of Harvey and securing their future had begun to fade with her brother dying.

He sat there, quietly observing people who came and went. Some were drunk. Some had awful cuts, swollen eyes, their face and clothes covered in blood — those of the last kind were immediately transmitted to the ER, probably to avoid half of the reception getting sick. There were children with high temperature, and their mothers, swallowing back the tears as they tried to get the attention they needed. They were, too, people like Harvey, simply waiting and staring at others, without being able to think of anything more to do. Once in a while a doctor or a nurse came for one of those families — those were usually whole families, there were not many who were sitting alone —, whispered something with their faces straight and bored with the every night routine, and then led them along the corridor, off to somewhere Harvey could not go.

Donna was a godsend. He didn't understand how he could have failed to see that before. She walked in, her clothes in a perfect state unlike his, confident and decisive; she scanned the room and then she noticed Harvey, and suddenly all the decisiveness and strength disappeared. She pressed her lips together and wrinkled her nose, as if trying to push the tears to the back of her head.

Before she had the chance to ask, he already answered:

'I don't know anything, they wouldn't let me in. How did you know to come here?'

'Rachel called me, asking if I knew anything' Donna shook her head. 'I can't believe it... he was so full of energy just this morning! I went back to the office and had Louis tell me everything'.

Come to think of it, the paralegal might have been in the crowd behind Louis's door. Harvey glanced at Donna; her eyes were red.

'He'll be okay' he said, though he himself was not quite sure of that. 'You'll see'.

They sat in silence for a minute, both contemplating the evening's events and the chances of it all playing out the way they wanted it to. Then Donna said:

'This shouldn't have happened'.

What she meant was the fact that Mike was the last person any of this should have happened to, and that there was something seriously wrong with the universe as a whole, and Harvey fully agreed with that, only he suspected that he was the rotten element and that it all had happened because of some schemes that were meant to bring him down — though he had always been looking down on those who tried to search cause for all the bad of the world. And yet those words reminded him of what he had been wondering about before Donna had come.

'No, it shouldn't have. I should have seen it' he declared, fixing his tie and sitting straight. 'It wouldn't have happened if it hadn't been for me'.

'You're awfully self-centred' commented Donna. 'You can't blame yourself for all of this, Harvey —the dealer shouldn't have sold him that pot and Mike should have told us. It's not like you're the only one who had done wrong, I mean, I should have known too'.

'No' he simply said. 'You're not the one who was supposed to see it coming'.

She wanted to aggressively ask him why not, he could see it in her eyes, but instead she kept quiet and placed a hand on his shoulder, a gesture which gave both of them the feeling of comfort, but wasn't that much of a deal that it should bring out memories and theories about things once going differently. None of them wanted to dwell on that, especially not at such a time.

Donna probably knew he simply would not be able to form a coherent response to the question she decided not to pose, because, and that was the smooth-talking closer admitting it, that was one of the things you could not neatly put into words which would convey the meaning. It was more of a premonition, a distant feeling that he should have been the one to know. Not because Donna couldn't have handled the knowledge. Not because she wouldn't have done everything to solve the problem. Because he sensed it was somehow his place, his duty that he had not fulfilled and was now faced with the consequences.

They remained silent until the doctor came. Harvey couldn't tell what were the thoughts running through Donna's mind all that time, but it was not difficult to summarize his: numbly staring at the empty space, he refused to ask himself the question of what would it mean if Mike _didn't_. Not because the answer could not be put into words, but because those were the words he was not, and would never be, able to listen to. Though, in fact, there were probably no words either.

**The last chapter coming up soon, I should hope. Please review if you find the time!**


	10. Chapter 10

**Last chapter, yay! I mean, apart from the epilogue. Whatever.**

**CaribbeanTrinidadian: glad you liked it; I hope the answers you get in this chapter will be satisfying!**

**kasinka613: gdyby nie Louis i jego ciasto, byłoby tak słodko, a tak czułam się rozdarta... Ach, kto nie lubi, kiedy Harvey w ogóle cośkolwiek okazuje? :)  
**

**littlegirlm: don't get a heart attack, please! (and if you do, do not sue me, unless you can get Harvey to represent me - though that probably wouldn't exactly work in your favour...)**

**hikeyosemite: thank you!**

**Chapter 10**_** in which Mike is, thank God, alive **_

_**(Saturday)**_

Grammy was dying.

Her eyes had been full of amusement and affection just a minute ago, and now they were screaming in terror and pain.

'Grammy, what's wrong?'

The features of her face suddenly changed and then froze when she let out her last, long sigh. In that single sigh there was everything: all her pain and sadness, all her jokes and chortles, and loving smiles, and a huge part of Mike, the best part of him and his life that she had formed and created.

He stared at her motionless body and then screamed like a wounded animal, yelled for help, begging for someone, _anyone_, to come, but nobody did. Why would no-one come? Why would they refuse to help him?

'Because you've slept with another woman after telling me you still wanted to be together' he heard Rachel's voice and spun around, but he didn't even catch a glimpse of her. Darkness and greyish shadows were all that surrounded him.

'Because you've kicked me out' Tess's voice gave him the shivers, some of disgust and guilt, others — of lust, but she, too, was nowhere to be seen. It was just him, lifeless Grammy in her bed and the creepy shadows.

Awaiting the next voice in anxiety, already suspecting of whom it would be this time, he realised it _didn't matter_. What use was it to worry about the relationships he had damaged? Those could be fixed.

Grammy couldn't.

He pressed his eyelids together to stop the tears.

'Because you've slept with a married woman, you've been smoking pot again and I'm in a crappy mood'.

Wow, that was quite a lot of reasons.

A sudden scent of tomato sauce appeared in the air and for the first time since Grammy's death he asked God, fate, the world or simply himself the question 'how?'. How was he going to go on? How was he supposed to keep on living after losing the very person who had made his existence possible? Who had given him all the reasons to fight and dream, and accomplish, and move on after failing?

'Because you've bled on my carpet'. Hey, what was Louis doing in his shadowy world? He was never expected to help anyway, he had no place there!

Just when Mike was about to tell him that, something struck him: had he really bled on Louis's carpet? No, he hadn't. He would have remembered that — in the end, bleeding was not one of the things one would easily forget, was it?

And then he remembered. A very vague memory smelling of blood, vomit, expensive cologne and paralyzing fear. _Oh no._

Where was he? How come he hadn't bothered to ask himself that question before? What was happening to him? He wasn't—? Or was he?

You can only truly appreciate the value of something when you think you might have lost it forever. Where was his breath? Where was his precious heart beat? They had to be there like they always had, they had to, if he had only looked, because _oh God, _he could not die, he could not die, he could not!

What he could not do was also breathe. His lungs were empty and dying for oxygen. Dying. How ironic. He needed air. He needed to breathe. Breathe in, breathe out, he told himself. It had never been difficult, had it? _You can do this._ Mike couldn't die. Mike wanted to live. No matter if Grammy lived or not, if he cried in bathrooms in the evenings, if he felt alone or broken, if he was in pain. Mike wanted to live so badly it hurt.

But then he heard something. He felt something trembling inside of him, rhythmically doing the job it was supposed to — somewhere in his chest. When he realised what it was, he filled his entire lungs with one gasp, as if life was around him, in the air, and all he had to do was take it in.

He calmed down slowly, listening to the regular beat of his heart.

_A—live, a—live, a—live, a—live._

He was finally coming back to his senses, which had been disabled by the rush of adrenaline. Beginning to feel curious about his surroundings and current situation he didn't know that much about since his memories were vague and probably not fully trustworthy (there was one in which Louis was dancing polka over his body while Harvey played the accordion), he first tried to mute the sound of his bumping heart and tune to different sounds around him. There was a silent beeping from some kind of medical appliance, he guessed, as he felt an IV under his skin, some distant footsteps and quiet breathing he decided was not his own. The shadowy world was gone by now, but all he could see was darkness. It took him a moment to realise that was because his eyes were still closed.

Mike carefully opened one of them to see darkness yet again. For a minute he thought he had gone blind, but after his eyes had accustomed to the light — or lack thereof —, he understood that was, luckily, not the case. He had an awful lot of luck lately, he decided — being alive and able to use most of his senses. He opened the other eye and first saw his own feet under a colourless blanket, which must have been white during the day. The only light was coming from the screen of some medical device and from the corridor, through the glass, transparent door and into the room, allowing Mike to distinguish shapes. The one he took most interest in was sitting on what seemed like a chair, leaning against the wall. He turned his head to take a better look and then the figure moved closer, so close he could see its eyes.

''Morning, sunshine' the figure said, its lips forming a little smile.

'Donna' he uttered with relief. No matter how bad your situation was, it was always nice to see a friendly face. 'What time is it?'

She glanced at her watch.

'Four o'clock. In the morning' it was quite funny how she was whispering though there was no one else in the room she could wake up by speaking too loudly. Maybe she was simply trying to fit in with the atmosphere.

'And what day?' he asked, since he found the time hadn't told him as much as he had previously thought it would.

'Saturday. You've been sleeping for awhile, you were admitted around eight'.

Donna's hand moved in Mike's direction and after a moment of hesitation it met with his forehead. Pretending to be taking his temperature, she held it there for a couple of seconds and then lowered it to touch his cheek. Donna had a nice hand — cold and gentle.

'How are you feeling?' Mike almost jumped in surprise when what he had originally thought was a lamp of some kind turned its head in their direction and spoke in a deep voice, a bit croaky, like the voice of someone who hadn't been talking or hydrating in a long time, but still impossible not to recognize.

'Um, fine, I think. Hi' he greeted him awkwardly, but all he got in return was a nod. Harvey was still motionless, like that lamp he resembled in the dim light, and his eyes were fixed on Mike, like the eyes of a wild animal just before it leaps and devours its prey.

'What's happened to me?' he said to Donna, aware of the fact that though he was now looking in her eyes, Harvey's gaze was still on him. But it didn't seem like a good idea to talk to him now, not with all the awkwardness and tension in the air, and not when being unclear about how much of what he remembered from last night had really happened, especially when some of his memories consisted of playing polka and other highly improbable elements.

Donna bit her lip and shot a glance at Harvey, then stood up from the chair and patted Mike gently on the shoulder.

'You know what, I think I'll go find some coffee, we've been waiting ages for you to wake up, okay?' she smiled at him with a sad smile, if smiling could be sad, reminiscent of those he had enjoyed so much back in the bathroom that Thursday night. And then she left, back straight and head high, swaying a bit from side to side, hiding it under the impression it had been intentional.

'Where is she going to get coffee at 4 o'clock in the morning?'

Harvey shrugged. The Chronicles of Awkward Silence part one hundred and sixty seven, Mike thought. Approximately. He wondered what Harvey might be thinking and had he been standing there, next to the door, playing dead, since Mike had been brought in. Maybe it was some kind of a self-defence mechanism, pretending to be a lamp.

'Am I on meds? My thoughts begin to lack common sense'.

Harvey refused to respond at first, but then something broke in him — maybe he hadn't grown as fond of the awkward silence as it would seem — and when he did, his voice was still a bit croaky. Mike had to fight the urge to tell him to get some water or go see a doctor, because that could be a developing throat infection.

'More than usually?'

On second thought...

'Within normal' he watched Harvey make first moves after being a lamp for the last couple of hours, very rigid and slow moves, as he approached the bed, his eyes still on Mike. He wasn't sure whether his boss was even blinking.

'Do you remember anything from last night?' Harvey placed his hands in his pockets. It was really weird, that staring at each other — it had to be the longest stare he had ever received from anyone. Even his primary school teacher, who had got mad at him during the first couple of days and had then promised she would watch him_ extra _closely, had never made him feel under such careful observation.

'A bit'. For example the polka episode. Best not to reveal that though, at least not yet.

'You got poisoned by arsenic from the pot' explained Harvey.

'Arsenic?' Mike blinked in surprise 'I thought you died from arsenic poison'.

'You do' he snarled and something in Mike's chest shrank in fear.

'But I'm going to be OK, right?' Of course he was, he felt fine, maybe a bit sick, but he was off the hook by now, wasn't he?

'You are' Harvey promised quickly, as if sensing the fear in his voice. 'But it was goddamn close'.

Mike sighed in relief, rested his head on the pillows and carefully watched Harvey approach a night lamp on a little stool next to the bed. The light was yellowish and warm, and it allowed him to see his interlocutor more clearly — his dark eyes, something resembling a stubble slowly forming on his chin, a wrinkled, white shirt with rolled up sleeves (though how he managed to wrinkle it by standing straight Mike could not imagine) and purple marks on his forearms. Mike furrowed his eyebrows when Harvey immediately hid them by rolling the sleeves down. Before he had the chance to demand an explanation though, his boss spoke.

'Let me tell you a cautionary tale: there once was a fake lawyer who was stupid enough to smoke weed from an unknown source and, when he experienced symptoms of poisoning, not to tell anyone about them, even after he was asked a goddamn _direct question_' he seemed to be speaking louder and louder with each and every word. 'You wanna know how he ended up? _Dying_ on the floor of someone else's office!'

'But I didn't die' Mike spoke in his own defence, trying to pull further away from Harvey when he saw his remark only infuriated him more. If life had been a cartoon, Harvey's head would have had exploded by now.

'Why the hell didn't you tell me?'

'How was I to tell you?' Mike raised his voice too, it made him feel a bit more in control of the situation — plus, he had had enough of obediently listening to Harvey's yelling in the past days. 'You were finally talking to me instead of yelling, and well, I really needed that, Harvey! And what, I was supposed to ruin all that by telling you I was smoking pot? So that you'd treat me like shit again?'

'It wouldn't matter!' Harvey exclaimed and Mike shot a worried look at the nurses' station, since he was under the impression they were being a bit too loud. 'Look, there are— there are two kinds of things. The first one are things like sleeping with married women or screwing up, or breaking promises, things that seem to matter at first, but really don't, because there is that other type and stuff like kneeling on the floor with someone literally _dying_ in your arms, not having the skills to do anything but wait and pray the ambulance arrives on time' he seriously looked as if he was about to punch someone, but there was no one in reach— no one expect Mike, to be precise, which made the situation even less comfortable. He glanced at the nurses' station again and saw one watch the two of them carefully. He'd better calm Harvey down or she'd come and kick him out; she'd have every right to do so, since he probably shouldn't even be here long after visiting hours had finished. And Mike didn't fancy the idea of being left alone in the dark room with the sole beeping of medical appliance.

'Look, you think I wasn't scared out of my mind too? I was. And I'm sorry about the pot—and for not telling you' he wanted to continue, convince Harvey to let it go, assure him he was probably just as angry with himself, but realised he had grown tired of trying to make it better. He felt a bit nauseous, his hands were shaky again, his eyes stung and all he wished for was for Donna to come back, stroke his hair, ask him if he fancied some cold water or another pillow, or simply sit beside his bed and not make him feel even guiltier than he already was.

He closed his eyes and for a minute he heard nothing but silence; then Harvey's steps approached him and then stopped when he slumped down the chair Donna had been sitting in before setting off for a coffee hunt.

'Well, everybody does stupid things from time to time' Mike heard him say and, knowing how hard it was for him to forgive, granted him with a thankful glance.

'Like playing polka when somebody's almost dying?'

Harvey furrowed his eyebrows.

'What in God's name are you talking about?'

Oh. No polka then.

'You've got blood on your trousers' he quickly changed the subject. He was lying now and Harvey was sitting so close to the hospital bed that Mike was scared he would break his nose with a knee if he suddenly moved. 'Is it mine?'

Harvey lowered his gaze and removed his knees from Mike's face, clearly noticing the danger.

'No, I had two other associates die on me yesterday evening, it must be one of theirs'.

'Soap can do miracles, you know' he said, causing Harvey to chortle, when in the same time pulling closer to his dangerously close and edgy knees, suddenly realising he'd liked it better when they had been seconds from blasting his nose. It gave him a warm feeling of comfort.

'It can't without ruining the material'.

'Oh' he made a couple of quick calculations in his head, 'maybe if I sold my apartment—'

'I'd be more glad if you took the money and bought yourself a decent suit' Harvey smiled and leaned back in the chair in a more relaxed pose.

'That is not only unfunny, but also completely invalid! I've been wearing decent suits since you drew a frown on that grey one'.

'I bought a special marker for that' the fake nostalgia in his voice caused Mike to chuckle for the first time in quite a while. 'What did you want to talk with me about?'

The question got him by surprise.

'Nothing in particular' he uttered finally, since nothing came to his mind. No, that wasn't it — a lot of things came to his mind, but after such a long time of keeping it all inside, after all the thinking he had done, all the things that had happened and all the changes of perspective, he wasn't so sure as to what to choose or which of those subjects were even worth talking about. He wanted to tell Harvey his grandmother had died, but that Harvey already knew and it wasn't like he could change anything about it, no matter how much he wanted to — and Mike was sure it was a lot. He wanted to ask him what had made him so tense and unwilling to notice others had been going through some shit too, but he could imagine his boss disregarding it as unimportant in their current situation and insisting they switched their attention back to Mike, any attempt at gaining further information bound to failure.

Harvey was getting impatient and Mike still couldn't come up with something to talk about that could really get them somewhere — some place he didn't already know the looks of. But then again, it was not that much about the results, but rather about the act of talking itself, he thought when he remembered his late night walk with Donna. There was hope that if there had really been some things worth talking about, they would maybe come up later on. And so he said:

'Rachel hates me'.

Harvey let out an exasperated sigh, but there was some sort of an exaggeration to it which served Mike as a hint that it had not been completely serious.

'I thought the soap opera didn't start until eight'.

'That's a rerun'.

'Then call her and tell her you've nearly died, maybe she'll go into an overprotective mode for a change'.

'Like you did?'

'Hilarious. You're still thinking about your grandmother?'

'Sometimes. Hey, you know what...'

And then they just went with the flow, as if some metaphorical wall between them had just broken down.

**This has been the longest one, hasn't it? It had been even longer originally, but I cut out some of the conversation at the end, since I found the best way was to leave it open (though it was hard to resist, writing carefree dialogue between those two is so heart-warming). I hoped you liked it - I'll try to post the epilogue soon!**


	11. A Very Short Epilogue

**Okay, to keep it short: a huge THANK YOU to all of you who reviewed the last chapter (should I name you? You probably know your own profile names... I feel like responding to your reviews takes too much space here, but also that I should respond, even if it's just with a couple of words - maybe I'll try doing that with private messages in the future, if you don't mind) and the chapters before that. I especially would like to thank kasinka613 and hikeyosemite, who have been here from the very beginning of the story.**

**Enjoy!**

**A Very Short Epilogue **_**in which Harvey curses himself for choosing an Italian restaurant**_

'Okay, now I know never to take you to dinners with clients' summarized Harvey and filled their glasses with more wine. 'Or at least forbid you to order anything containing tomato sauce'.

Mike grinned at him, not ceasing to tuck in his spaghetti Bolognese, now and then reaching for a napkin to take off some of the thick sauce from his lips, chin and — to Harvey's utter terror — nose. He must have been sick of the hospital food, since from the moment he had been served his meal up to now he had seemed not to even bother to breathe, let alone talk. Harvey took a sip of the wine and continued to watch his associate with a mixture of disgust, amusement and fascination, and maybe something else he had trouble putting into words, but it was somehow related to watching someone tremble and bleed on the floor one night and devour spaghetti the other.

Mike looked up from the plate and must have seen something in Harvey's face that made an impression on him, because he stopped eating for once, his fork in the air, halfway to his mouth.

'Earth to Mike, come in'.

He smiled with a nostalgic kind of smile, more to himself than to Harvey, and resumed his attention-consuming activity that was eating, his gaze back on the plate and its contents, but with the little smile still on his face.

'You know' he said, swallowing the spaghetti, 'I'm getting suspicious here'.

Harvey furrowed an eyebrow and took a sip of the wine.

'You took me out for dinner' Mike started counting, gesturing with his fingers. 'You talked with me. You smiled at me with that smile of yours. Are you trying to _close_ me?'

Harvey was to respond with some snarky remark, but instead he choked on the wine which happened to almost bring Mike down to tears. As if there had been something funny in the fact that your boss was about to die from oxygen deprivation.

'You were saying?' asked the kid to irritate him even further.

'I was saying' he coughed to restore normal speech 'that I close clients, rivals or people in the position of power. I wouldn't bother with you'.

'But you did' Mike shook his head in amusement. 'You _are _trying to close me'.

Reflecting that opposing was not worth the hassle anymore, Harvey instead admitted to the crime with a smug smile:

'I closed the shit out of you'.

His associate emptied his plate and requested a desert, since Harvey was closing him anyway and had to grant all his wishes, then Harvey explained that was not what closing was about, then Mike raised an eyebrow and they ordered desert, and Mike seemed very happy when he was devouring his chocolate mousse, very not-dying, very not-thinking-about-his-grandmother and very not-buying-drugs, and generally very well-closed. Mission accomplished.

'Well, this has been, I guess, my greatest accomplishment as a lawyer' concluded the well-closed. 'Talking you into taking me out for dinner...'

'You've never talked me into doing anything, Donna talked me into that'.

'Yeah, but it were my actions that led you to agreeing' the kid seemed to be awfully pleased with himself, so Harvey opposed once again:

'Which doesn't count as much, since we both know you didn't do any of those things with the sole purpose of convincing me to take you out for dinner'.

'Well, that just proves I'm even a better lawyer. I do those things subconsciously' Mike hesitated for a moment, searching for the perfect expression to gloat. 'I'm a _natural_'.

Something told Harvey it would be below his dignity to grant that with an answer, so instead he indulged in his crème-brullee, quite aware of the fact that he was being carefully observed by his associate, feeling his gaze shifting from his forehead to his chin, something very mathematical about the gaze that made the impression that Mike was calculating something in his head, adding and subtracting values on the basis of Harvey's facial expressions.

'You want to know what I think?' Mike finally uttered, by the tone of his voice one could easily come to the conclusion the results of the convoluted operations had met his expectations, he ignored Harvey's negative response and continued 'I think it was _me _who closed _you_'.

Thank heavens for Harvey not having any wine in his mouth to choke on, because that time it would have been deadly.

'_No-one_' he made sure he stressed the two syllables strongly enough and then repeated them just to be on the safe side, '_no-one_ gets to close Harvey Specter'.

'I closed you' said Mike with a mixture of pride and utter disbelief, and grinned at him from up the chocolate mousse.

_Damn it, _Harvey thought, giving the kid a sceptical glare.

_He bloody did._

**I hope you enjoyed the story throughout and that we shall 'meet again' :)  
**


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